


mutatis mutandis

by Sarah T (SarahT)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: fragment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-27
Updated: 2012-08-27
Packaged: 2017-11-13 00:08:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/497194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SarahT/pseuds/Sarah%20T
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one ever gets to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	mutatis mutandis

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this mostly as a stylistic and genre experiment to amuse [](http://the-spike.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**the_spike**](http://the-spike.dreamwidth.org/). It's not my typical approach to canon.

Mycroft can always tell.

It's not as if attempts at obfuscation aren't made. Sometimes Sherlock tries to hide the signs. Sometimes he exaggerates them. Whatever he thinks will get him what he wants at the moment.

But, really, it's pointless. Mycroft needs to watch less than half a minute of footage of his dear little brother—fed to him from the CCTV system he cracked so long ago—to know when he's beginning to feel restless again.

To know when people are about to start dying.

He waves off the images— _Sherlock, crossing a street, oblivious to traffic both foot and vehicular, tucking and retucking his scarf, hands sliding up and down his coat to adjust his collar for the twentieth time_ —with a dismissive gesture and picks up one of the secure lines.

(Even with Sherlock, first contact is never direct. _No one ever gets to me._ )

"Tell him I have a little something for him," he says. "Five-thirty today."

 

It's five-twenty-five when he hears the footstep—distinctive and familiar as his own heartbeat—in the doorway, of the only person in the world who is permitted to see him alone. He doesn't look up or lay down his pen. He's working; he's always working. He will be finished with this project in exactly three minutes.

"You didn't need to break her wrist," he says. "She won't be of much use as a bodyguard now."

"She seemed to think I should wait until you summoned me. That was an obvious mistake. You couldn't possibly want to employ such inferior material."

"Be careful, Sherlock, or people will start to think you're eager to see me."

"Not _you_ ," Sherlock says, with that directness that sometimes disarms—or simply flattens—lesser beings. Mycroft merely deplores it as a form of the crudity that _will_ break out in Sherlock sometimes, no matter how it's corrected.

"I know," he says, and reaches without looking into the lockbox. "My brotherly charms pale in comparison to the appeal of this."

He can hear the faintest catch in Sherlock's breath as he holds up the tiny bottle of clear fluid and shakes it negligently. He's sure Sherlock notices him noticing, because his voice takes on an even more aggressive tone.

"Why do you even care whether I take more subjects? They're just lives; you must kill more people in a week than I manage in a year."

"For business, Sherlock, not for pleasure," he chides. "And your killings introduce an element of…chaos into affairs that I cannot always afford."

"Oh, do you have some sort of crime spree scheduled? I'm so sorry to inconvenience you."

One minute and seventeen seconds left. "You could never inconvenience me, Sherlock."

An ambiguous statement, if there ever was one. Sherlock doesn't take it up, though. Instead, he asks, "What is it you want?"

There is not a dealer in London or environs who would be unwise enough to sell drugs to the little brother of Mycroft Holmes. If Sherlock wants supplies, there is only one source for him. Sometimes, this entails complex negotiations indeed.

But not today. There is no need to employ his little brother’s peculiar aptitudes in the service of some particularly delicate project today. Today is comparatively simple.

5:28. He finally looks up at Sherlock. He's dressed casually today, in well-cut jeans and a bruise-colored jumper that sets off his pale skin and blue eyes in a shocking way that any sensible observer should be able to diagnose as too much, an effect sought after beyond any bounds of temperance, taste, or sanity. It’s an eternal mystery to Mycroft that so few do.

He’s lounging in the doorway, looking impatient. Sherlock is always impatient, except when he’s captivated. Mycroft appreciates the way he wears either mood. Right now he looks as if he’s inviting lightning to strike him, just for the sensation of it. Mycroft’s own fingertips tingle.

“Nothing,” he says. “You can have it.”

Sherlock doesn’t move. “But?”

“You can have it right now, or”—he folds the bottle into his hand, out of Sherlock’s view—“you can let me put you into something more suitable for an evening out.” _You’ll enjoy the latter far more_ , he lets hang in the air.

The value of delayed gratification is a lesson he has been trying to teach Sherlock since the day he was old enough to reach for a rattle.

Sherlock tilts his head and studies him. For all his sullen shows of independence, he knows what an evening of Mycroft’s time is worth. The crimes that will go uncommitted, the threads of intrigue that will be dropped—he may not quite know what they are, but he can make a good guess at their value. And he has spent a whole lifetime learning how entertaining Mycroft’s company can be.

“It’s your choice,” Mycroft concludes, and sets the bottle on the edge of the desk.

Sherlock straightens and glides over to him, past the bottle. He bends down for a slow, curious kiss, as if he's trying to gauge the program for the evening. Mycroft pushes a hand up under his jumper, but uses it to hold them there. “You’re too good to me, Mycroft,” he murmurs, and his breath tickles Mycroft’s eyelids.

“No,” he says calmly, “I’m truly not.”

“We’ll see tonight, I suppose.”

“Yes.” He reaches for his pen again. “We’ll leave at seven.”

 

Music first.

Neither he nor Sherlock is a great musician; they both have technical proficiency to burn, but they also lack an ability to enter into certain emotions in a piece, which means their effect on their auditors can be most disconcerting. _Demonic_ , young Sherlock's last instructor had declared, backing away. _He doesn't need a teacher—he needs an exorcist._ Mummy had cast at them—Sherlock and Mycroft _both_ —that horrible look of resignation that it had taken Mycroft so long to understand.

(Eight years later, a tragic surgical mishap left the man entirely without the use of his right hand.)

Mycroft likes to listen to Sherlock play, regardless. It's not a matter of aesthetics, or, if it is, it's of Mycroft's very own, very peculiar brand.

He doesn't know what Sherlock thinks of his playing, these days. There was a time when Mycroft would play the French Suites, as fast as he could without errors (it is so very important _not to make mistakes_ ) as long as he could, and that would be enough to transfix Sherlock's brain for hours on end. He would sit on the floor behind the piano bench with his knees drawn up and his head on his knees and he would be _still_. Sometimes, if Mycroft was very lucky, he would fall asleep there, and Mycroft could carry him off to bed, struggling with his aching forearms and trembling fingers.

Those days are long gone, and instead they are going to hear one of the standard works of the Romantic repertoire, as interpreted by a talented young soloist known for her particularly lush phrasing. They are at least twenty years younger than the average concertgoer, something Mycroft never ceases to find amusing. Sherlock drops into his seat with the air of someone prepared to pounce on the tiniest fault.

But the concerto goes off well. Mycroft measures its success by the way the critical tension drains away from Sherlock's posture, the way he slumps back into his chair, the way his eyes flutter shut and he slowly goes slack with pleasure. He doesn't often get to observe Sherlock like this. It's genuine, not some attempt to manipulate, he knows that much—but otherwise, it is a mystery. He wonders where Sherlock's gone, inside his head. What does Sherlock know of the sweet mourning of the second movement, the gentle hope of the third, the yearning for the infinite that pervades the piece? Is this the only way he _can_ know it?

"Playing music is _communication_ , Mycroft," one of his own instructors had told him once, irritably. "It's not an intelligence test."

As if there were any difference, Mycroft thinks now, and risks, in the dark, a brush of his fingers over the back of Sherlock's hand. Sherlock turns his head so that it rests for a moment, comfortably, on Mycroft's shoulder, and sighs gently. Another breath, and he's drawn back.

Mycroft knows that's all the thanks he's likely to get for the tickets.

 

The restaurant is charmingly old-fashioned in style, yet luxurious in a very modern way, its backers having correctly anticipated the current mania for culinary nostalgia. The tables are laid with white cloth, waiters hover, everything is cream and gold. Mycroft regards the menu with satisfaction.

"For God's sake, Mycroft, it's like the nineteenth century ended and no one told you," Sherlock comments, looking at the menu himself.

"There's a reason French cuisine never really goes out of style, Sherlock."

He'd gotten Sherlock changed into a slightly less conspicuous outfit: crisp white shirt unbuttoned two buttons at the throat, fitted black jacket and trousers. Sprawled casually in his chair, he might be any very privileged young man, out on the town with someone else paying the bill. Mycroft takes a second to wonder whether he would have it so, if he could—a Sherlock who was the typical wastrel younger brother, with no greater talent than spending Mycroft's money frivolously, no greater troubles than the modern equivalent of getting pinched on Boat Night. He knows he wouldn't, but the idea _hurts_ him in some strange, entirely unanalyzable way, so much so that his eyes go shut.

"There are four different types of cream sauce on one page alone."

He opens his eyes again, surveys one of Sherlock's wrists, which are so thin a woman could encircle them with a finger and thumb. "That certainly won't do you any harm."

"And I take it you've decided that you need more gravitas. That is, still _more_ gravitas."

Mycroft turns the page. "Pike quenelles," he says happily. "It's not easy to find those these days."

"You order, then," Sherlock says abruptly. "This is all meaningless to me."

"That was always my intention."

Mycroft orders, in French, a meal extensive and decadent enough to make even the well-trained waiter raise his eyebrow just a fraction. And wines, of course, in profusion.

When the quenelles come, they are nestled in sauce nantua and smell glorious. He lifts one on his spoon and looks speculatively over at Sherlock, who is engrossed in escargots, as Mycroft had predicted he would be, extracting the flesh from the shells with a tiny fork and the expertise of a connoisseur of dissection. "Would you like to try these?"

Sherlock regards him for a moment, then parts his lips invitingly.

Mycroft represses a smile, and, underneath it, a dizzying little fall of desire. But there are places, and there are places; this restaurant is the former, and he'd like to keep it that way. For now. "Pity," he says, and pops it into his own mouth.

It's a good thing at least one of them has some capacity for boundaries. When he wants to, at any rate.

 

Only a talented observer could spot it, but as he and Sherlock emerge from the restaurant, Sherlock's movements are ever-so-slightly weighted, and his glances around drag against the surfaces they encounter. Someone who didn't know Sherlock well might blame the wine, but Mycroft knows it's far simpler. Butter, cream, sugar, flour: Sherlock, who lives on tea and dry toast, has no real defenses against them, the flood of primitive satisfaction they can deliver to the hindbrain.

Sherlock attempts to live fully independent of his hindbrain. It makes him vulnerable to assaults from that direction. He suspects what's going on, of course, and takes it out on Mycroft in a too-long lean against him as the car approaches slowly, crawling through traffic. It's a good thing Sherlock doesn't know how vulnerable Mycroft is to assaults from _that_ direction; he thinks he's being, exclusively, annoying, and doesn't even bother to hide the smirk against Mycroft's shoulder.

"You're not drunk, Sherlock," he tells him, and redirects him into a more upright position.

"You never appreciate my theatrics."

"Not _always_ ," he says, as the car glides to the curb.

It's not as if a man of his profession can't enjoy watching the Met spin itself out in a frenzy over the latest mysterious death. He arranges for the unedited feeds of the police press conferences to be delivered to him, and watches them when he needs a little levity. Sherlock is three separate serial killers to them, to say nothing of the unconnected deaths, and what they do with the clues he leaves them…well, let's just say it's no wonder that they've never come within a mile of either of them.

Once in the car, Mycroft surrenders to the need to check the Blackberry, just this once. Only eight messages, with Charity screening, but that's enough. He briefly weighs a man's life in his mind, thumb poised over the keyboard. Sherlock registers his disapproval of this shift of attention away from him with a sharp nip to his ear. Mycroft flattens his hand into a plane and delivers a precise blow at the weak spot of Sherlock's jawbone while typing with the other.

Life spared. For now.

"That wasn't very nice," Sherlock chokes out.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Mycroft smiles, "did I promise to be _nice_ to you this evening?"

Sherlock's eyes go a little wider as he takes in the shift in tone. Mycroft likes watching the faint flush bloom in his cheeks. "You're always nice to me in public. So where are we going?"

"The Diogenes, please," Mycroft tells the driver.

The color in Sherlock's face gets just a little more vivid.

 

The Diogenes Club had turned out to be one of the most rewarding investments Mycroft had ever made. It isn't that he needs to indulge terribly often, or that he can't arrange to indulge in private. But some pleasures are best enjoyed other than in private.

Such as slipping his arm round Sherlock's waist as they stand in the little lobby, a gesture which never fails to draw (well-bred) attention. Sherlock is striking enough to justify the attention on his own, and for those few who recognize them, the frisson must be doubled. Mycroft doesn't mind providing the frisson; he delights in having a place where his power is so absolute that he need pretend to nothing.

Such as the idea that his feelings for Sherlock have their limits, or _should_ have their limits.

He leans in and murmurs in Sherlock's ear, "How many of them know?"

Sherlock struggles with it for a second, but they both know he's thinking of the little bottle in Mycroft's pocket, and how close they must be getting to using it. His eyes flick about. "Three."

"Four, Sherlock, _four_." He pinches him, and Sherlock bites his lip. Mycroft looks at the tremble of his jaw and thinks: _not long now_. "I think I'd like a drink."

They ascend the staircase, Mycroft's arm now firmly on Sherlock's shoulders, and everything falls quiet; the rule of silence that governs all the public places of the higher floors is absolute. The bar is larger than it needs to be, to allow members remote reaches to amuse themselves in. Light gleams diffusely off brass fixtures, leaving pools of shadow between individual islands of habitation. Mycroft's usual place, a comfortable club chair in one of the further corners, is unoccupied. He takes it, leaving Sherlock standing. Sherlock gives him a quizzical look. Mycroft raises his eyebrows and looks pointedly at the floor by his feet.

Sherlock frowns uncertainly, but, given the rules here, is helpless to protest. He sits, slowly, gracefully, cross-legged, on the thick carpet, steadying himself with his hands. His head comes to rest against the arm of the chair, only a few inches from Mycroft's own hand. The posture is so different from the sarcastic sprawl he might have adopted only a few hours earlier that Mycroft has to take a moment to admire his handiwork.

He reaches out, and with great deliberation, puts his hand on the back of Sherlock's neck and holds it there. There's the tiniest shiver down Sherlock's spine. _There_ , Mycroft thinks when the shiver passes, and as he thinks it, Sherlock turns his head, offering his face to Mycroft's fingers. Mycroft caresses its severe planes, thinks of aliens and arthropods and the edges of the obsidian knives of ancient Egypt. Probably such associations should be disconcerting. But, then, probably so should the fact that he is touching his brother with entirely inappropriate intent, and his brother—his endlessly complicated and difficult brother—is not fighting him in the least.

Mycroft's arousal is general, a matter of heart and lungs and nervous system, until Sherlock's tongue slides out and brushes against his palm. That jolt crystallizes it, and now he's hard, as he hasn't really been for weeks. He wonders for a moment if his plan isn't too elaborate, whether he couldn't simply have Sherlock down here.

But he'd laid out a plan, and Sherlock isn't going to stampede him ahead. He'd ordered a drink, and here it is. He takes a large first swallow of the Scotch, then shifts his hand back to stroke Sherlock's hair. It's delightfully soft. He moves his fingertips in tiny circles against his scalp, and Sherlock sighs and lets his head drop against Mycroft's knee. _Gone under._

He pets Sherlock like that for a little while, listening to his breathing and sipping at the Scotch, letting it warm him from the inside. Then he clenches his hand in Sherlock's hair and pulls him up firmly. Sherlock blinks up at him, and he puts the tumbler to Sherlock's lips. Mycroft knows it isn't wise, not with the morphine in his jacket, but at the moment he feels invincible. Sherlock, who knows it, too, swallows obediently, and the sight of his throat moving, moving, pulls something loose in Mycroft. He yanks Sherlock up between his knees and kisses him, licking his lips and savoring the taste of the liquor.

After they're done, Sherlock rests his head on his shoulder, panting slightly. His eyes, slanting up at Mycroft, are dazed.

"Upstairs," Mycroft says, just barely, against his temple.

 

The Diogenes offers furnishings to suit many tastes, but Mycroft usually prefers, as he has tonight, the large suite of utterly anonymous modern comfort. They could be anywhere after he closes the doors and draws the drapes—anywhere or nowhere. When he turns around, Sherlock has already pulled off his jacket. He's rolling up one sleeve, eyes intent. But Mycroft has him on the bed in an instant, teething at his throat. There's a startled flail of long limbs around him, but when he finds the perfect spot, bites down and sucks hard, Sherlock groans and grabs at his shoulders.

The sound curls deep into Mycroft. He reaches under him to part Sherlock's shirt and skim one hand up his flat stomach. Sherlock's eyes have gone almost all the way shut. Mycroft pushes his jaw up, admiring the spot he's just bitten. The mark is already going white. Tomorrow Sherlock will flaunt all the bruises he gives him like an emblem. The thought of him moving through the London streets, catching every eye, with Mycroft's mark visible on him makes his stomach drop again.

Yes, his aesthetic must be unique. Or is it, truly? Sherlock is so beautiful and unheimlich, only extremity really suits him. Is there anyone who would want him different? For all his struggles with him, Mycroft doesn't actually want him to change; he only wants him not to be destroyed.

Or destroyed by no one's hand but his. He raises up to slither Sherlock's trousers off, then his own. He reaches over and selects one of the three kinds of lubricant in the nightstand. Slicked, he kisses Sherlock on the mouth, once, hard, and pushes his knees back so he can slide into him.

The feeling is stupefying, but not so much as the sight beneath him: Sherlock's face pitched at an angle that makes it strange and new yet again, hair a mass of incongruously riotous curls, his skin an ivory among ivories, his long fingers clenching into the sheets. He looks as if it hurts. He looks as if he were struggling to break through the pain into something…further.

"Oh, seal that so," Mycroft whispers to him. "You exquisite creature."

He might think _mine_ if he didn't know, if he didn't already and always know. He doesn't need to remind himself of the laws of gravity to keep the two of them on the bed.

"Mycroft," he answers in a breathy appeal, and to hear his name, in _that_ voice, in _that_ way, would drive almost anyone mad. Mycroft speeds up.

"My angel of death, my herald of chaos…"

He's startling himself with these flights, but Sherlock should see, should see that Mycroft saw it all and still _wanted_ , could make something gorgeous out of anything Sherlock was. That kind of love couldn't be contained in polished wordplay, not in the heat of it.

And Sherlock's nodding at words both of them might have laughed at in another context. Mycroft can see him drawing the words in, expanding inside with them. "God, Mycroft, yes," he hisses, and Mycroft jerks with the orgasm, almost falls over on him.

After a minute, he settles next to Sherlock. Sherlock's forehead is damp with sweat. Without opening his eyes, he murmurs, "You'd be lost without me."

Elsewhere, it might be a challenge; here, it sounds halfway between affection and wonder.

"I'd be so bored," Mycroft says, and manages to laugh, though it's perilously near a sob.

They lay there for a little while longer, until Mycroft says, "Now for you."

Sherlock's eyes follow him lazily as he gets up to retrieve the kit they'd had waiting for him. Sherlock hadn't asked, Mycroft realizes; he'd trusted. The thought pleases him enough that he says, "Before or after?"

"Before, if you would."

Mycroft comes back to the bed and kneels down next to Sherlock. He pushes Sherlock's sleeve up further, inspects the skin of his arm. It's marked here and there, imperfections against the pallor that he instantly resents, but it could be worse. He draws the liquid up into the syringe, wondering at its clarity. Carefully, he ties off the arm and flicks his finger against the skin. As the needle slides into Sherlock, Mycroft bites his own lip.

Sherlock's intake of breath follows a second later, like an echo.

When he withdraws the needle, he's flushed again. He stares at the droplet of blood beading in the crook of Sherlock's arm. Such a bright color. After a brief internal struggle—if he starts enjoying this too much, it will end badly for both of them—he leans down and licks it away. Strange; it tastes no different than any other.

"How do you stand it, Mycroft?" Sherlock says sleepily, already beginning to go boneless. "It never gets quiet."

Mycroft props himself on one arm next to him, resorts to the lubricant again, and wraps his hand around Sherlock's erection. "Never, Sherlock?"

"Not without this. Or, sometimes, when I'm working on a subject."

"I am always the most forceful voice in my own mind," Mycroft tells him as he strokes. Even now, with Sherlock's warmth in his palm, his scent in his nostrils.

"Funny." Sherlock's lips twitch. "Sometimes you're the most forceful voice in _my_ mind, too."

"If only that were true more often."

He folds his hands on his chest. "Hmph."

With the morphine coursing through him, it takes a long time. Mycroft doesn't particularly mind. He could look at Sherlock at peace, adrift amongst the rumpled linens, for a very long time indeed. When his breathing finally quickens and his hips jerk, Mycroft almost regrets the disturbance.

Almost: because when his dreamy contentment sharpens focus suddenly into ecstasy, it is one of the most beautiful things Mycroft has ever seen. _O-seal-that-so indeed._

And afterwards, of course, he is still drugged and pliable, letting himself be arranged comfortably against Mycroft's chest. Saturated with pleasure and with Mycroft's will. No one will have to die to take the edge off Sherlock's existence for some time.

Mycroft glances at the clock. Seven hours and forty-seven minutes. A little infinity. He is a wealthy man by anyone's standards, but rarely has he felt more so.

As he's drifting off, he's surprised to hear Sherlock say drowsily, "That was…nice."

Mycroft smiles, his voice equally thick with the onset of sleep. "I suppose I'm being nice to you after all, then."

"Knew you would be."

If there's a note of self-satisfaction in his voice, Mycroft is willing to let it go. It's only the echo of what's in his own heart.


End file.
